This year StageTalk Magazine is taking a special interest in the Cheltenham Music Festival and, in particular, the event relating to Shakespeare and to Erik Satie on this, the 150th anniversary of his birth.
I have been a fan of Erik Satie for a very long time. Not just for his music, which is of course quite unique, but because of his participation and influence in the visual arts and theatre as well.
In 1915 he collaborated with Jean Cocteau, writing incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A year later, again working with Cocteau, he composed the ballet Parade for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, with sets and costumes by Picasso and choreography by Léonide Massine. He was associated with the Dadaists and the Surrealists in Paris and worked with Man Ray on the artist’s first ready-made . . . the list goes on. Erik Satie was a consummate avant-gardist to the tip of his pointy beard and his influence on all forms of art cannot be over-estimated.
I remember in 1980 careering around London in search of a new book, The Writings of Erik Satie by Nigel Wilkins, one of the few available books on the composer at the time. I went to Foyles and all the other shops in Charing Cross Road and hardly anyone had heard of Satie, let alone the book. I finally tracked it down to a music publisher in Great Marlborough Street and the book was my constant companion for a long time thereafter. Nowadays, it could be said that Satie is ever-so-slightly over-exposed with his Gnossiennes and Gymnopedies available on Golden Classics type CDs at every supermarket check-out. Michael Hasted
SATIE AND MULTIMEDIA by Christina McMaster at the Parabola on 16th July.
I think the title of this concert, part of the Keyboard Interventions strand, could easily have been misconstrued. “Multimedia” all sounds very modern and computery whereas, in fact, the highest tech this got was fuzzy projections above the pianist’s head. However, a bit of high tech that would have come in handy was lapel mics because it was difficult to hear a lot of the spoken word, especially in Sports et Divertissements when Sarah Gabriel struggled to be heard above the grand piano. It was even difficult to hear Christina McMaster’s introductions at times. But anyway . . .
This was a very enjoyable and varied concert, mixing piano, percussion, film and the human voice. The proceedings opened with short pieces by Scarlatti, Satie and Debussy, inviting us to contrast and compare, followed by the witty and irreverent Sports et Divertissements. The first half concluded with live piano and percussion accompaniment to Francis Picabia’s Surrealist film masterpiece, Entr’acte. It was his links with Dada and Surrealism that brought me to Satie many years ago so seeing this was a particular treat.
The second half continued much in the same vain with music by Stravinsky followed by the film At Land by Maya Derento to the music of Satie and John Cage. Freya Waley-Cohen’s The Bubblegum Jungle was a piece for voice and piano, featuring a poem by 9-year-old Roxy Kleinman who suffered nightmares following the death of her pet rabbit. Now that is Surrealist. The concert finished with a new piece by Richard Bullen which involved Ms McMaster playing a duet with her projected self.
There was a time when classical musicians tended to be bespectacled, balding, middle-aged men, who were often Jewish, or rather forbidding ladies. Now it seems you have to be young and beautiful, as well as talented. Christina McMaster certainly qualifies in the latter group and is an artist of whom we will surely hear much more. Very pleasing. Michael Hasted
VEXATIONS at St Paul’s Church, 15th July
Erik Satie was, by all accounts, a fairly eccentric character and, I am quite prepared to believe, a bit of a mischief-making agent provocateur as well. I can’t help thinking that his piece Vexations was a sort or musical practical joke although it is said to be a lament to his disastrous, one and only love affair. Maybe it was revenge.
The composition consists of one short page of music, preceded with the direction trés lent, that is to be played, non-stop, 840 times. Hmmm. Understandably, the piece is not performed that often and this eighteen-odd hour Satieathon with its ever-ticking score-board managed so rope in some star names to do their bit, including Alistair McGowan and John Wilson.
It must be said that the location for this event rather added to the vexation of the audience, many of whom installed themselves in the comfy chairs with a good book and a steely determination. St Paul’s Church, although a magnificent be-pillared building, is in one of the slightly seedier areas of Cheltenham (yes, Cheltenham does do seedy) and rather off the beaten track, so one’s patience and resolve was sorely tested in more ways than one.
But seriously though . . . Erik Satie’s Vexations is a truly seminal work, being more radical and avant than any of the other avant-garde works emanating from Paris a century ago. It has a soothing, hypnotic quality which, if you let yourself be embraced by it, can be strangely satisfying and therapeutic.
If you want to know where John Cage, Stockhausen et al came from you need look no further. Michael Hasted
Pascal and Ami Rogé SATIE AND FRIENDS at the Pittville Pump Room, 6th July.
This was the first “proper” event of the Festival and it couldn’t have started better. Satie and Friends was perhaps a misnomer – contemporaries may have been more apt. Perhaps because of his lifestyle and eccentricities Satie was a difficult man to get on with and his only really enduring friend was Debussy. That said, Satie was in the proverbial right place at the right time and the zeitgeist, in all forms of art, was to instigate radical changes. So, although he may not have had many long term friends, he certainly knew anyone who was anyone and was an influence on many of them. Debussy said that he was “the precursor”.
This concert, in the magnificent venue of the Pittville Pump Room, by husband and wife team Pascal and Ami Rogé, was mostly of pieces for four hands, starting with Satie’s music for the ballet Parade from 1917 followed by a selection of short pieces by Debussy. The charismatic couple’s playing was immaculate and the nearly full house enjoyed every moment of it. Generally, the acoustics in the vast, domed space were fine but when playing the top octave fortissimo the sound was very percussive, sounding more like a xylophone than a shiny grand piano. It was only evident in one piece, so was not a major problem.
After the obligatory Gnossienne No.2 the first half ended with a selection of short pieces by Ravel. The music of Ravel and Satie has a lot in common and is certainly complimentary. His piano pieces and, in fact, all his chamber music is sublime but, like Satie, his best known work overshadows everything else.
The second half started with Satie’s equally obligatory Gymnopédie No. 1 followed by Je te veux from 1903. It was then the “‘friends’” turn with pieces by Milhaud, Tailleferre, Durey, Auric, Honegger and finally Poulenc. I must confess to not being familiar with the middle four so I had a few pleasant surprises.
This was a most enjoyable concert in wonderful surroundings from a couple who are deft and dexterous exponents of Erik Satie, and his friends. Michael Hasted and Astrid Burchardt.
ERIK SATIE: MEMOIRS OF A PEAR-SHAPED LIFE at the Parabola Theatre, 6th July
This event was billed, not as a recital but a “theatrecital” and employed an actor, so it fell well within our remit.
Erik Satie was a true eccentric who meticulously catalogued his life and thoughts in words and so it was an easy, and maybe obvious, choice to combine the writings with the music. Festival director Meurig Bowen, who devised and wrote the show, took us chronologically through the composer’s life and times and the presentation was itself, befittingly, a little eccentric.
Pianist Anne Lovett sheepishly wandered on stage at the beginning, dressed as a sort of white-faced clown, her mass of curly locks enclosed in a bowler hat surmounted by a glowing light bulb. As she launched into Gnossiennes Mr Satie himself, played by Allan Corduner, popped his head round the curtains, first on one side, then on the other before finally arriving on stage.
Luckily, there is a lot of documentation about Satie’s life, both from his own writings and those of his friends and contemporaries and Mr Corduner quoted from them with an impish delight while wearing another bowler hat. He conveyed Satie’s eccentricities so convincingly that we were happy to believe that living off a diet of only white food and making a necklace of sausages for his one-time, short-lived mistress, the famous artists’ muse Suzanne Valadon, was entirely normal. We learned that although there were days when the composer could not afford to eat, he would never miss his evening’s aperitif. The whole proceedings were rather dominated by a large, though not entirely successful, giant bearded and bespectacled pear which was propped up in the corner of the stage. All very Magritte.
Satie’s best known tunes, the ubiquitous Gnossiennes and Gymnopedies, do tend to suffer a bit from over-exposure, but listening to them beautifully played in the intimate atmosphere of the Parabola Theatre left us in no doubt why they are so popular. Anne Lovett, with her sensitive playing, shed new light on the pieces with which we are all so familiar and made us hear them anew. Satie’s piano pieces have such a dreamlike, mesmeric quality that they reach deep into the soul and it is easy to see how they, and the composer himself, were embraced and revered by André Breton and the other Surrealists.
I wasn’t entirely convinced by Max Hoehn’s direction which was at times ill-conceived. Visually too it could have been much better and I found there was often too much distraction from the music, not least from Ms Lovett’s illuminated hat which would have benefited from an on/off switch. That said, nothing could really spoil the music, text and the performances by Allan Corduner and Anne Lovett. A very unusual and enjoyable evening. Michael Hasted
and also . . .
THE PLAY’S THE THING at Cheltenham Town Hall on 17th July
National Youth Chamber Choir and National Youth Orchestra.
Youth orchestras are a tricky thing to review – quite often there is that thumpy sound, the adolescents playing stiffly, too shy to express their individuality as performers, directed by the patronising, over-enthusiastic, “Hey, guys, didn’t they do well” chef d’orchestre encouraging the audience to applaud for effort.
Thankfully, the National Youth Jazz Orchestra has outgrown such problems. Under the baton of Mark Armstrong the NYJO wielded cello and a saxophone almost larger than its player with brio. Most pieces were based on Shakespeare’s work – Lady Mac, A Bard’s View of Death, others on the Tempest and Midsummer Night’s Dream. On the program was a mix of Duke Ellington, Vaughan Williams and work by recent composers such as Ben Parry, Peter Churchill and the very young Owain Park, born in 1993 and currently in the process of graduating from university. His piece When Love Speaks leads me to make a note to look out for more of his work.
Appearing with the NYJO was the National Youth Chamber Choir who, I felt, outshone the orchestra with their beautifully calibrated singing and brilliant voices.
Julian Lloyd Webber deplores the current cutting of music teachers in schools. Music is known to improve all round learning, because it requires application, enthusiasm and inquisitiveness, all qualities needed in the sciences. Media and drama classes mislead children into believing they can become stars. Music should be taught as a means of expression, not simply to be consumed on a mobile – in schools we cut music at our peril. Astrid Burchardt
